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Friday, February 5, 2016

Oldest Images of Lord Jesus Christ

The Alexamenos graffito (also known as the graffito blasfemo, or blasphemous graffito) is a piece of Roman graffiti scratched in plaster on the wall of a room near the Palatine Hill in Rome, which has now been removed and is in the Palatine Hill Museum.It may be the earliest surviving depiction of Jesus, and if so is the earliest known pictorial representation of the Crucifixion of Jesus, together with anengraved gem. It is hard to date but has been estimated to have been made c. 200.] The image seems to show a young man worshipping a crucified, donkey-headed figure. The Greek inscription reads something like, "Alexamenos worships [his] God." The graffito was apparently meant to mock Alexamenos, a Christian.

The Good Shepherd – 3rd century

The image of the Good Shepherd is the most common of the symbolic representations of Christ found in Early Christian art in the Catacombs of Rome.

Adoration of the Magi – 3rd centuryThis is a picture of a cast of a sarcophagus that is in the Vatican museums. It shows the scene of the magi adoring the Christ child and is dated to the 3rd century.

Healing of the Paralytic – 3rd centuryThis painting is on the wall of the baptistry of a church in a (long abandoned) ancient city in Syria. It depicts the story of the healing of the paralytic found in Mark 2, and it is dated to the mid-3rd century.

Christ Between Peter and Paul, 4th century

This appears in a cemetery in an imperial villa that belonged to Constantine and is dated to the 4th century.

Pantokrator – 6th century

This is the oldest surviving panel icon of Jesus, and it is found at Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai.